Our Amazing Homebirth

Jude Robert Jackson 15th July 2014

Our amazing story begins with a home pregnancy test that came back positive! It was a bit of a shock but we were over the moon. We knew early on that we wanted to have midwifery led continuity of care and I was leaning towards a homebirth, I just had to convince Gabe (my husband). Being a midwife I knew that I would prefer an intervention free birth if I was able.

We decided on a homebirth and met our midwife, ‘Sarah’, we were really happy and the pregnancy continued on without a hitch. Sarah unexpectedly left around the 26-week mark and we were devastated. ‘Ann’ finally volunteered to take us on and we will be forever grateful for that.

We decided to try hypnobirthing as through my work I had seen it work extremely well for women and their partners. So we set about doing the course and practiced everyday.

On my ‘guess date’ I went for my usual evening walk down east point that night and came home and was contracting very mildly about five minutely. I was still able to go about my normal activities and was even giving my housemate, Adele, a neck massage as she had a sore neck. Because of this I thought that it was probably just Braxton hicks. I sent Ann and my husband, Gabe, a message and told them exactly that. By the time Gabe came home from work I had showered and they had fizzled out, so we went to bed to make sure we got lots of rest in case tonight was the night.

I woke at around one in the morning with a big painful tightening that was unlike any I had had before. I timed the next one, seven minutes apart, six minutes apart, five minutes apart and that was when I woke Gabe as I was uncomfortable and wanted him to put my tens machine on.

He asked if he should call in sick to work for tomorrow (he was on in the morning) and if he should call Ann. I said to give it another hour as it could fizzle again. He watched me have a couple of contractions and ignored me and called them both. Ann said to set up the pool and call her back when we needed her.

By this point I couldn’t get comfortable at all and the light was annoying me. Gabe was trying to make me take photos of him setting up the pool and I was getting annoyed that he was making me do that. So I went to my room and put my hypnobirthing affirmations on and bounced on the fit ball in the dark. Gabe woke Adele to be with me whilst he set up the lounge. (When he woke Adele up he told her it was Christmas LOL).

I was able to breath through my contractions really well and found that they weren’t painful but uncomfortable and in my mind that meant it was probably really early labour.

Finally the lounge was ready, Gabe had done such a good job, the pool was half full and ready for when I wanted to get in, there were tealight candles everywhere, the affirmations from my blessing way hung above the window and photos of us surrounded the birthing space. All I could say was ‘It’s too F’ing bright’. At that point we probably should have realised I might have been further into our birthing journey than we thought but Adele and Gabe just looked at each other and thought what on earth will we do when the sun comes up LOL.

Gabe set about blowing out every second candle and I settled onto the fit ball with Gabe on one side and Adele on the other holding my hands. I was breathing through my contractions so well that neither Gabe nor Adele could tell when I was contracting. If they spoke to me or touched me I would get very irritated so we just sat in silence. I started to feel very nauseated and was getting them to press on my acupressure points for nausea, which worked really well.

I started to fall asleep in between contractions so decided to lie down on the couch and rest in between. I got up on to the couch and laid on my side, sleeping in between contractions, I was vaguely aware of Adele and Gabe eating food and discussing breaks. This is when after the contractions I started to say things like ‘ooooh that one was an a’hole’ in a really calm voice. In my head I was thinking that if we had to do this for another twelve hours I was going to get an epidural LOL. But mostly I thought of my contractions like mountains that needed to be climbed. Once I was at the top it was all downhill and fine. Just two breaths, slowly in and then slowly out and it was over.

At this point I thought that the increasing uncomfortableness was due to the fact I was lying down. I decided to get up and go to the toilet to empty my bladder. I got to the toilet and started to sit down when my body started heaving. I was involuntary pushing! We didn’t have our midwife there but I didn’t even worry about that. I thought it was way to early to be pushing and was convinced my body was pushing on a cervix that wasn’t completely open (this is what happens when you have too much knowledge). After being silent for the rest of my labour this is when I started to wail or kinda yodel like tarzan as my body pushed for me as I squatted on the bathroom floor. Adele ran off to call Ann and retrieve the oxygen and suction from beneath her bed and Gabe stayed and supported me in the bathroom.

I noticed a bloody show and yelled to tell Adele to tell Ann I had a bloody show as I knew this meant the baby was coming – but I was in shock and it didn’t truly register. On the next push down my waters popped, a tiny amount of clear fluid on our bathroom floor. I begged Gabe and Adele to let me hop in the pool but they wanted me to wait for Ann. Eventually Adele said ok let her hop in, and Gabe led me to the pool waiting in the lounge. On the way I thought I should probably just make sure there wasn’t a head about to pop out and as I felt down I felt a lot of head down there and knew it was coming quick.

I quickly jumped into the pool and landed on my knees exclaiming how amazing it was before having another contraction holding onto the pool edge. At this point Gabe disappeared and it wasn’t until later that I knew where he went, I had said the whole way through pregnancy that I wanted him to get into the pool with me, so he had gone to find bathers, he couldn’t find them so emerged in the lounge in just his jocks, it was going so fast he didn’t get a chance to get in in the end.

Ann arrived and Gabe answered the door (in his jocks LOL, Ann later said she had to think ‘just look at his face, just look at his face’ bahaha). A said she could hear me yodelling from the car with the windows up and the music playing! Ann walked in and I promptly pushed out the head! Which I was also shocked about as I didn’t realise I was that close to birthing the head (which is also silly in hindsight considering how much head I could feel when I was walking to the pool). After a few minutes there was one more contraction and our baby was born! Gabe and I helped it to the surface of the water and both exclaimed ‘it’s a boy!’ We were so happy, everyone cried except for me, as I was still in shock that it was over only three and a bit hours after it had begun! We hadn’t even had time to call the second midwife! Jude was born at 4:39am.

After the birth everything went amazing, the placenta came away with no dramas, we had some stitching done and then ate hashbrowns, had a breastfeed and called family as the sun rose. Jude was weighed at a whopping 4.08kg! I couldn’t believe I’d birthed a baby so big LOL! Gabe surprised me with an amazing eternity ring, a ‘push ring’ and I felt like the luckiest woman in the world!

After Ann left we snuggled in bed on a complete high and enjoyed some family time just as we’d imagined. We tossed up names and took 24hours before deciding on Jude Robert Jackson.